Modelling of continuous steel coating by self-induced ion plating (SIIP)

The present communication deals with the numerical simulation of a new physical vapour deposition process called self-induced ion plating (SIIP). SIIP can be defined as the evaporation of a metallic target thanks to ion bombardment of a magnetron sputtering system. The simulation of the SIIP process is based on three coupled models. The first one deals with magnetism and simulates a magnetron system, the second one defines the heat transfer phenomena (conduction, radiation) that occur in the SIIP process and the last one determines the coating thickness profile on the substrate using the theory of evaporation. The computed thickness profile is then compared to the measured one. We notice that the model results and measurements have the same order of magnitude but model results are under-estimated. We conclude that we have to improve our model by removing some assumptions.